What 11 year-old kid wouldn’t LOVE to live in a zoo??? Whit Whitaker, that’s who! Whit did not like living in a zoo, but he had no choice. His mom was the zoo director and his dad was the elephant keeper, but his parents seem more interested in the animals than him. Whit hated living at the zoo. He wasn’t allowed to go out of the zoo at all. He was even home schooled (or is that zoo schooled?) right in the zoo by a tutor. Whit didn’t have any friends and parents that didn’t know he existed most of the time.

Whit notices a girl that comes and draws pictures of the birds at the zoo. He sees her almost every day and decides to talk to her. Whit and Stella (the Bird Girl) start meeting every day at the zoo and become good friends. Whit learns that Stella’s father abuses her family through violence and she comes to the zoo to get away from her home. Whit wants to help his friend, but helping her may get him into a lot of trouble.

This was not the usual action adventure story I love to read. In fact here wasn’t much action and maybe just a little adventure, but I really liked the story. I cared about what happened to Stella. I wanted Whit’s parents to pay attention to him. They were both great characters. Ms. Latham’s writing style really let me get to know the characters. I liked that they both needed each others friendship and they helped each other. The story had a strong message about abusive families (both kids had abusive families, although Stella’s was a violent one and Whit’s parents just didn’t pay attention to him). There was some cool stuff about all the behind the scenes at the zoo in the book when Whit shows Stella around. I really enjoyed reading about that. Although the book talks about abusive families, it is written really well for kids. I was sad I found some editing errors in the book (misplaced periods, a couple of places Whit’s name wasn’t capitalized), but I liked the story so much I didn’t think about that when I gave the book my rating. I recommend this book to kids 10+ only because it deals with the subject of abuse.

Five out of five bookworms for excellent friendship story “Don’t Feed the Boy.”

To learn more about Ms. Latham and her books, including “Don’t Feed the Boy,” Please visit her website HERE.

Like this:

I found this week’s quote on Renee LaTulippe’s blog “No Water River.” Ms. La Tulippe has the most awesome blog on picture books and poetry. I really like her features where she has poets reading their poems on video! I saw this quote in an interview with poet and novelist Irene Latham and I thought it was perfect! To see the complete interview and see Ms. Latham tell her poem “Dolphin Learns to Spin” please click HERE.

“Go out and make your own mistakes. Learn. Live a life worth writing about.”

– Irene Latham

To learn more about Ms. Latham and her books please visit her website HERE. Ms. Latham is also having a Goodreads give away for her MG book (that I really want to read) “Don’t feed the Boy.” Click HERE to go to the Goodreads giveaway!

Here’s what it says about the site on The Plumb Tree Blog – “The new Youth Tube site is launched on The plum Tree. We hope to encourage early literacy and children’s creativity”

Right now they are asking for children 12 and under to send art projects in titled “self.” My sister and I are making drawings to send in and I think this is a great way for kids to show and be proud of their work. So all you Creative Kids can also send your work in to be featured on “Youth Tube“!